Walking the Talk
Reimagining Corporate-Nonprofit Partnerships in Times of Crisis

In a time when needs are growing but government resources are constricted, nonprofits are being asked to do more with fewer resources. Promises made by companies to fulfill the needs of their communities and their stakeholders are more important now than ever before — which is why we need social impact solutions that can do both.

The global COVID-19 pandemic — and its economic consequences — are quickly
reaching every corner of the world; generating a series of complex, interwoven
challenges that governments cannot solve alone.

As both federal and local governments struggle to support the people and places
impacted by the global health crises, public officials are turning to
nonprofits, social enterprises and NGOs to help those that are most at risk. In
fact, US Representatives are even introducing the Save Organizations That
Serve (SOS) America Act, which would provide nonprofits $60 billion in
emergency
funding.

Nonprofits are social-centric by design — with the networks, procedures, and
solutions in place to ensure people’s needs are met and social issues are
addressed. As PennsylvaniaRepresentative Brian
Fitzpatrick
explains, “Our community and our nation, and those most in need, cannot survive
without [nonprofit organizations].”

Yet, in a time when needs are growing but government resources are constricted,
nonprofits are being asked to do more with fewer resources. While Feeding
America is working to ensure food banks across the country are stocked and
emergency food boxes are distributed; the UN Foundation is delivering
essential supplies and critical information to workers on the frontline of the
crisis.

In addition to critical needs such as access to food and health services,
nonprofits such as DREAM are addressing educational
inequality by sourcing computers for families as they move towards
distance-learning models; while organizations such as Kiva are making it as
easy and impactful as possible for small businesses to have access to affordable
capital — which may be critical to keeping their doors open.

What’s incredibly alarming is that COVID-19 is putting the very existence of
many impactful nonprofits at risk. Across the country, nonprofit programs are in
“grave danger of using up what funding they have; which could cost millions of
jobs across the country, and result in long-term shutdowns of community
centers,” according to ABC
News.

That’s why, now more than ever, we need the business community to step up and
help fill the funding gaps the nonprofit community desperately needs. It’s time
we shift to a new paradigm, one that creates a sustainable funding stream to
address the fallout from
COVID-19
— and, moving forward, persistent systemic issues such as climate change, social
inequality, educational disparities; and the gaps in the delivery of healthcare,
the seriousness of which have been highlighted by the current crisis.

In the past, businesses have helped support social causes through corporate
philanthropy,
which is separate from day-to-day business operations. In this model, giving is
limited by financial constraints, as companies determine their donations based
on profits. Unfortunately, this approach results in woefully inadequate
contributions to support critical social causes because we’re addressing these
challenges from a place of scarcity.

To address this, Givewith is leveraging social-centric
design to put people in need at the center of everyday business activities. By
enabling companies to direct a small percentage of their B2B transactions to
fund highly effective, pre-vetted nonprofits, social enterprises and NGOs — it’s
helping nonprofits tap into a new and vast ocean of resources, where $16.5
trillion
flows between businesses annually in the US.

From the business perspective, this funding is sustainable because it is the
result of business practices that benefit the businesses, too. By pairing
companies with relevant nonprofit programs and equipping them with high-quality,
experiential assets to share the impact with their customers, employees,
communities and other key stakeholders — companies can improve multiple key
performance indictors and derive business value that exceeds the fraction of the
B2B transaction itself.

In fact, research by Boston Consulting Group shows companies who use these
assets can benefit from an increase in sales up to 7 percent; an increase in
employee engagement and retention up to 5-7 percent; a boost in Net Promoter
Score (NPS) by up to 7 points; and positive Environmental, Social and Governance
(ESG) ratings.